Felicity Huffman Catches Break Thanks to Release Rules

Credit for time served, plus DOJ guidelines on weekend releases spring actress 3 days early
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 25, 2019 1:08 PM CDT
Felicity Huffman Out on Day 11 of 14-Day Sentence
In this Sept. 13, 2019, file photo, actress Felicity Huffman leaves federal court in Boston after she was sentenced in a nationwide college admissions bribery scandal.   (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer, File)

If anyone thought Felicity Huffman's two-week prison sentence was too short, it just got truncated even more. People reports that the 56-year-old was released Friday from the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, Calif., on the 11th day of her 14-day sentence. Huffman, who pleaded guilty to paying college admissions consultant Rick Singer $15,000 to help change her daughter's SAT answers and boost her score, had been set to be released on Sunday, but per the DOJ's Federal Bureau of Prisons' guidelines, if a prisoner's release date falls on a Saturday, Sunday, or legal holiday, that prisoner can be released on the weekday preceding the release date.

Still, since Huffman started serving her sentence last Tuesday, NBC News notes that if she entered the prison on Oct. 15, then her Oct. 27 release date would only be the 13th day of her sentence, meaning she should've been released Monday. The Washington Post has the explainer: Huffman received a day's credit for time served on the day she was arrested in March. Meanwhile, another famous prisoner gently ribbed Huffman for a paparazzi photo that emerged last week of her in her prison garb. BuzzFeed reports Martha Stewart, who served time in prison for lying about a stock sale, was at Vanity Fair's New Establishment Summit this week and mentioned Huffman's attire. "She should style her outfit a little bit more," Stewart says. "She looked pretty schlumpy." (More Felicity Huffman stories.)

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